Sixteen people are on trial in Auckland district court following the raids, the culmination of a year-long police undercover operation that involved up to 300 officers and was centred on the isolated North Island hamlet of Ruatoki, gateway to the Urewera mountains that are home to the fiercely independent Tuhoe tribe. The raids followed sightings of “armed men in camouflage and balaclavas moving through forests carrying heavy packs and firearms”. There are unconfirmed claims that among the weapons seized was a napalm bomb, or perhaps some molotov cocktails, and rumours that the prime minister, Helen Clark, may have been a target.

One of the men arrested has reportedly told police he was training to be “a vicious, dangerous commando”, would “declare war on this country very soon”, and that “white men are going to die here”. Another, a colourful Maori and Tuhoe activist called Tame Iti - previously best known for baring his buttocks at public protests and shooting at the New Zealand flag - is said to have been preparing an IRA-style “war on New Zealand” aimed at establishing an independent state on his tribe’s land. One New Zealand paper, the Dominion Post, has claimed Iti’s 20-strong group was known as Rama - the Maori word for enlightenment - and included ex-New Zealand army Vietnam war veterans as well as several teenaged recruits. It had adopted the IRA’s Green Book as its training manual, the paper claimed.

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